Because ugly duckling is now a swan

Ciunas, anyone?

When she slept, curled in the window sear as she’d often done as a child, she dreamed of a great war between gods and demons. A battle that had raged on for a century, and more. A war that had spilled the blood of both until it ran like an ocean.
And the ocean became a valley, and the valley became Silence.

-Valley of Silence, Nora Roberts

Ciunas means silence in Gaelic. Just one of the things I pick up from reading romance novels.

Silence is deafening. It is often awkward.

It is sometimes companionable.

But for some, it mostly feels empty. And almost everyone wants to fill the void. To feel alive because silence is for the dead. Those who will never speak again.